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Friday, September 27, 2013

If there is one thing that historians,
politicians, economists and other cultural commentators can agree on, it is
that everybody loves a milestone.Five
years after the financial quasi-apocalypse that reverberated around the world,
documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (director of the epic Paradise Lost documentary trilogy) sits down with the man at the
epicentre of the crisis to look back and explore what happened and why.

Hank Paulson was the Treasury Secretary
at the time and was part of the most exciting/terrifying moment in modern globalisation.The only problem is: can he explain the
mind-bogglingly complicated financial products in a way that audiences can
understand? (Especially as the investment bankers themselves weren’t sure about
them.)

The film has been created with two long
interviews with Hank and his wife Wendy, surrounded with news media footage of
the crisis as it unfolded.Having made alot of notes during this film,
allow me to attempt to explain the narrative of the before remarking on the
construction of the film:

Monday, September 23, 2013

There is nothing more special about the
power of cinema than when you find a film that creeps up on you over and over
again after viewing it.Sometimes you
may feel disconnected from a film when you watch it, but then afterwards the
impact that has been made can stick with you for days.This is especially enjoyable when the film
was sprung upon you without any information about it beforehand – the latest
film to work this magic on me was Jay Alvarez’s I Play With The Phrase Each Other, a film that is definitely not
for everyone.

The film cuts between a number of
characters constantly on the phone talking to each other about the minutiae of
their lives and feelings.Every single
scene begins and ends with somebody answering or hanging up a phone call and
only slowly as the audience eavesdrops on these conversations does a plot begin
to take shape.

Jake is a socially awkward obsessive
compulsive who is moving to the big city for the first time, having lost his
job at a bookshop in a small town.He is
convinced by Sean (an existential poet-type who scams people off of craigslist)
to move to the city with no job and no apartment.There is also Erin, Jake’s ex-girlfriend, who
hates her job and despairs of the rudeness of customers; Zane, a sexually
curious hipster who has a disturbingly detached obsession with Jessica; Marcus,
a criminal who has “heroin aspirations and Jake’s mum who mainly communicates
with Jake via his voicemail that he listens to through headphones as he dangles
his phone from his finger…

Friday, September 13, 2013

The
wonderful film A Late Quartet was released on DVD this summer (July 29th), from the director Yaron Zilberman. The film was, perhaps unfairly, marketed
towards the so-called ‘grey pound’ alongside other films such as The Best
Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Iron Lady, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The King’s
Speech. All of these films were aimed at drawing an older audience back to the
cinema, presumably to combat the haemorrhaging of younger audiences lost to
digital (and illegal) filmmaking.

Zilberman’s
film focuses on four middle aged musicians who have found international fame as
a string quartet.As they are practicing
for their latest tour of North America, the cellist (Christopher Walken) one
day realises that he may be getting to old to perform and that their next show
may be his last.The news begins to
affect the performances of the others and the drama moves from the stage to
their personal lives… I managed to ask him a couple of questions:

You obviously have a
background with string instruments, but can you explain a little how you came
about writing this script?

I've followed chamber music, in particular the
string quartet repertoire, since my mid teens. I'm drawn to the intense musical
dialogue and gamut of intellectual and emotional interactions between four
like-minded musicians (with like-minded instruments). So naturally, this
passion for the music brought an interest in string quartet ensembles and their interpersonal dynamics.

Over the years, I've read a lot about
a variety of ensembles from Haydn and Beethoven's time until today. It started
as a form of music played in a family setting - very intimate. When I started
thinking about what film I wanted to make after I finished my
documentary, Watermarks, I realized that it was to explore family
dynamics related to family themes I've experienced. And almost
simultaneously, I saw the potential of combining the two obsessions - family
and relationship psychology, and string quartet music/ensemble. From these
elements, the script emerged.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The new documentary film from husband
and wife duo Andy Heathcote and Heike Bachelier is the ultimate signifier that
the Kickstarter era is in full swing. The film was made as an obvious labour of
love over a four year period about a subject close to their hearts and has then
been marketed and distributed with a £20,000 boost from the popular crowdsourcing website (They actually raised over £25,000). Only in the
age of the interactive Internet can a film about farming expect a cinema
release.

The film follows Steve Hook, a charming
milk farmer from East Sussex that owns Hook & Sons farm. He is passionate
about fresh, natural dairy products produced on self-sustainable family farms. Steve
is on a first name basis with all of his cattle and tries to talk to them and
treat them like pets as opposed to livestock – especially his favourite cow
‘Ida’. Filmed over a number of years the filmmakers have captured the different
seasons on the farm ranging from the icy winter and the hardships that are
brought with the cold, to the glorious spring with the birth of the calves. The
narrative also includes the upgrading of the milking system with a bottling
plant, and the illness of Ida and the genuine sadness that Steve feels towards
her in pain.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

History is
full of shifting borders, colonialism and separatist movements and
unfortunately the conflict between people is mostly either religiously
motivated or over natural resources and topography of land – in other words, it
is very difficult to take sides easily. The new documentary from Dirk Simon
looks at the Tibetan movement to free Tibet from Chinese sovereignty and asks
questions about who is keeping the movement from going forward.

The film was
produced over a period of seven years as the filmmakers travel in and around
Tibet to talk with dissidents and citizens in exile about the separatist
movement and the negotiations (or lack of) with Chinese authorities.The film features interviews with the Dalai
Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Richard Gere (famously a practicing Buddhist)
and 18th descendant of the Great Religious Kings of
Tibet as well as a number of Chinese artists and Tibetan
dissidents. The narrative of the film takes in the aforementioned exiled young
king who is currently living in India, the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the
protests that did, and didn’t, occur as well as numerous examples of Chinese
violence towards the Tibetan people since 1949…

It is clearly
the intentions of some documentary filmmakers to provides much needed context
and insight into a land dispute and try to help ease tensions in a region, yet
so often films such as these simply pick a side (almost always the perceived
underdog) and highlight atrocities and injustices. This is, of course,
admirable, yet it also means that the target audience will end up inevitably
being people who already side with the separatists and wont be seen by anyone
in the aggressor country, where change could occur.

The problem
with When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun is that it is so obviously geared
towards a Western audience. The highest names on the bill are Richard Gere (who
is on screen for all of 50 seconds) and then the musicians Thom Yorke and
Damien Rice. Also, amazingly, the Dalai Lama is given totally unnecessary
subtitles, presumably for the American audience.The film therefore falls somewhere between a
beautiful travel documentary, complete with montages of landscapes and
landmarks, and a motivational promotional video aimed at advertising entrance
into a non-profit organization, that dispenses of historical context.

There is a
scene in which the Tibetan monks undertake some kind of a pilgrimage in order
to consult their oracle figure. The oracle is dressed in a lavish costume and
headdress and is surrounded by hundreds of monks and pilgrims as they watch him
undergo a spiritual trance before making his declaration. The scene would be an
incredible insight into an age-old and wise traditional ceremony, if it weren’t
for the monks all capturing the spectacle on their smartphones. He is literally
surrounded by glowing screens as he performs his miraculous divination.

This scene
inadvertently summaries a potentially controversial argument that is never
professed in the film: Do the Tibetans need saving from their own superstitions
and religious dogma? Without taking sides in the wider arguments of Tibetan
political autonomy, one thought that is never expressed in the documentary is
that in one sense it could be in the Tibetans favour to be dragged into modernity
– albeit without the violence that is perpetrated by the Chinese military. The
only reason that it is possible to profess this as a conceivable statement is
that the film does not provide enough context or history to fully explain the
Chinese motives. The only Chinese voices on screen are artists who live outside
the country and a few angry tourists that only voice a caricature of
Chinese/Tibetan antipathy. The aggressors (or The Dragon) are not given any
chance to explain themselves and the film takes for granted that the viewer
will already sympathise with the Tibetans.

There are some
interesting facts in the films that highlight the size of the problem. For
example, the population of Tibet is only roughly 6 million, which is vastly
different in comparison with their 1.4 billion Chinese neighbours, and
occording to this film 1.2 million Tibetans have died at the hands of the Chinese
government.Another fact is that Tibet
banished capital punishment in 1912, as opposed to the Chinese who still use it
to this day.These statistical figures
have the most damning impact on the nature of the brutality and give the films
its most legitimate moments of outrage and emotion.

In terms of
filmmaking, the film is undeniably beautiful. The number of different film
stocks and camera lens show the lengths and amount of time that the filmmakers
spent trying to capture the country in all of its glory. Whatever the film
struggles with in terms of narrative and contextual analysis, it is an
incredibly competent piece of filmmaking that shows a beautiful country in
unnecessary turmoil.

The problem is
that the viewer is inevitably left with the opinion that the Tibetans are a
mostly peaceful people (which they may well be) and the Chinese side comprises
of evil overlords (which they in no doubt have been at times), which is almost
certainly the opinion in which the viewer had at the beginning of the process.

(This review was originally posted on the now defunct SubtitledOnline.com)

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Oska Bright is a film festival in Brighton that promotes films made by people with learning disabilities. It has been going for nearly a decade and is the only festival of it's type. I love the idea and can't wait to see the films so I got in touch and asked a few questions.

This is the response I got from Sarah Watson (OB committee member and Carousel chair)

What is the
mission statement of the festival in your own words?

Oska Bright is a film festival managed by people with a learning
disability, showing films to anyone and everyone. Oska Bright is a festival,
spread the love about Oska Bright, all you need is love! We want to spread
great films made by people with a learning disability. We celebrate learning
disability culture, we promote it and make sure people take it seriously as
good quality art work. We work hard to connect with people who have learning
disabilities and give them the chance to show their films.

What was the
genesis of Carousel?

Carousel is an award winning learning disability led arts
organisation. Founded in 1982 Carousel works to promote the active involvement
of people with a learning disability in the arts, teaching new artistic skills
and developing existing talents. In 2000, Junk TV www.junk-tv.com, a youth and community film production company, andCarouselwww.carousel.org.uk, a learning disabled arts charity began working together
to support learning disabled people to make their own films. The films that
were made were animated films and were very colourful and fun to watch.

By 2003 quite a few films had been made but it was very
difficult to find any cinemas or film festivals to show the films to people.
After speaking to Screen South, Arts Council England and a number of local
production companies, Carousel and Junk TV decided to organise a small scale
event to show the new films.They supported a group of learning disabled artists
and film makers to set up the Oska Bright Festival steering committee – that’s
us!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Documentaries are normally split into
two categories: cinematic or televisual.Television mainly serves current affairs (obviously), whereas political
polemics are saved for the big screen to try and get some visibility above the
crowd (think Morgan Spurlock, Michael Moore etc.).It is refreshing when a film manages to
combine the best of both worlds to make a memorable take-home message with a
televisual subject matter – in this case, nature.

Markus Imhoof is concerned about the
unexpected and mysterious decline in honeybee populations around the
globe.His film is an exploration of bee
pollination, food manufacturing and genetic science in order to investigate
what the problem seems to be.He and his
team (narrated by John Hurt) travel from California to Switzerland to China and
finally to Australia to see how different cultures are reacting to the
problem.From looking at how and why
bees pollinate flowers; how they mate and create hives; how they act together
as a super-organism in order to protect themselves; and finally how they are
used by humans, Imhoof has managed to create a nature documentary that would
normally be found on television and made it worthy of the big screen.